Boston Dragnet for Marathon Bombers
April 19, 2013
The city of Boston and its suburbs are in a virtual lockdown as hundreds of police officers and federal agents conduct a citywide manhunt. They are looking for one Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts, who with his brother, Tamerlan, is believed to have carried out the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15. Twenty-six-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed earlier today after leading the police on a wild chase following the fatal shooting of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer. Before killing the campus police officer, the brothers allegedly robbed a 7-Eleven store, critically wounded a transit officer, and carjacked a SUV. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has issued a warning that residents of Boston and its neighboring suburbs should “stay indoors, with their doors locked.”
According to Massachusetts state police officers, the two men were Chechen emigres. Chechnya, a predominantly Muslim territory in southern Russia, sought independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Between 1994 and 2009, the Russian government waged two brutal wars against Chechen militants. During that period, Chechen terrorist groups carried out a number of attacks in Russia, most famously the 2004 Moscow subway bombing and the 2004 Beslan school siege that ending with the deaths of more than 380 people, including many children.
Additional World Book articles:
- Russia 1995 (a Back in Time article)
- Russia 1999 (a Back in Time article)
- Russia 2004 (a Back in Time article)
- Russia 2005 (a Back in Time article)
